January 7, 2003
Kamloops Daily News



Ah War.  Huh!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothin'
(From the protest song "War" by Edwin Starr, 1970)

The dawn of a new year illuminates the ugly face of military
aggression as the U.S. prepares to invade Iraq.   Three
decades ago the U.S. invaded Vietnam, supposedly to stop the
spread of communism.

In Vietnam "we believed that because our hearts were pure
and we were fighting for noble ideas, democracy and freedom,
that we could do anything.  And that we could transform
anything.  And we couldn't,"  says Anthony Lake, former
White House national security advisor.

Like the start of the war on terrorism, the Vietnam
war was triggered by a specific event.  When the Viet Cong 
attacked the warship Maddox in 1964,  U.S. president Lyndon
Johnson was given powers to take "all necessary measures to
repel attacks . . . and prevent further aggression."

Since the destroyer Maddox was sitting off the coast of
Vietnam,  we might wonder who the aggressor was but war is
not about logic.  By the end of 1969, 540,000 U.S. troops
were in South Vietnam to "protect" the Vietnamese from
communism.

By 1970, as sons and daughters arrived home from Vietnam in
body bags, many Americans were wondering what the hell they
were doing there.  The communists were winning the war in
the jungles despite all the bombs and napalm.  By 1974, the
communists chased the once-proud superpower home with its
tail between its legs.

Anthony Lake is not the only one haunted by the quagmire of
Vietnam and the humiliating images of the final retreat from
collapsing Saigon.  Retired Marine General Joseph Hoar
thinks of it often.  He was there.  "Our government failed
to define correctly the nature of the Vietnam war. And we
all know the result," he said in an interview on CBC TV.

Fast forward to 1990.  Communist Russia has not been
defeated, but rather collapses under its own incompetence.  
The failure of Vietnam fades from memory as the U.S. crows
about the triumph of  American democracy.

When Iraq invades tiny oil-rich Kuwait, the U.S. springs to
its defense.  They say that they are stopping the spread of
naked aggression.   But everyone knows the real reason.

"We had been deployed to protect oil reserves and the
profits and rights of American companies, many which have
direct ties to the White House and oblique financial
entanglements with secretary of defense, Dick Cheney, and
the commander in chief, George Bush, and the commander's
progeny," says ex-marine Anthony Swofford in Harper's
magazine (December, 2002).  He knows - - he was there.

Now George Bush's son has found a convenient new boogeyman
to replace communism.  It's terrorism that President George
W. Bush claims to fight.  And although Iraq is not a threat,
Bush will  invade Iraq to stop terrorism.  But everyone
knows the real reason and it is oil.

If Osama bin Laden chuckled over the loss of lives on September
11,  he must be laughing out loud at the prospect of his
enemies at war with each other.   Not only has attention
been deflected from Al Qaeda but Saddem Hussein will be
destroyed, a man bin Laden called "an apostate, an infidel,
someone who is not worthy of being a fellow Muslim,"
according to Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal, former
intelligence chief for Saudi Arabia.

The invasion of Iraq will likely be more like Vietnam than
Afghanistan. General Hoar isn't confident that that the U.S.
has a clear exit plan for Iraq.  "Sons and daughters of
American people are going to be killed out there because
somebody didn't plan for difficult eventualities."

The capital of Iraq, Baghdad has a population of 5 million. 
Saadem Hussein will use civilians as human shields for his
20,000 special republican guards who will fight to the
finish.

And if the U.S. decides not to bomb civilians, the
alternative is for ground troops to start fighting in
streets of Baghdad.   The U.S. will loose it's technological
advantage when their troops are in open combat, house by
house, block by block, rifle squad against rifle squad. 
"This could be a real nightmare," says Janice Stein of the
Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of
Toronto.

What has this U.S. administration learned from the war in
Vietnam?  Absolutely nothing.

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